


There are Flowers in our Brave New World

by soupsalad



Category: Equilibrium (2002), Fallout 4
Genre: AU, Assisted Suicide, Crossover, M/M, adam is x9, will add more tags as i think of them man, x6 is xavier, zander is z2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22385674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupsalad/pseuds/soupsalad
Summary: Zander is a cleric and he's ready to feel, hes tired of the numbness of nothing. He does not care what he feels, he just wants it. Adam wants to join him. ((au fic for my boys))
Relationships: X9-27/Z2-47 (Fallout)
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so uh I watched equilibrium to many times and now I'm writing au stuff. god only 1 person i know is gonna give a fuck about this love you jay heart emoji.

It's liberating.

He breathes in the scent of iron, he exhales frosty breath that looks like smoke to him in the winter air. He inhales again and exhales through his nose to get a gander of the phenomenon of hot air meeting cold. He can see the smoky effect rising from this mans blood too.

“Sense offender…” He says looking down at the corpse at his feet. It's mangled. This was not gun kata, this was nothing he had learned. He looks as if he were torn apart by a feral animal. There are teeth marks on his throat and what looks like stab wounds everywhere else.

The bloodied knife is held tight in his fist, it drips on the poor bastard's face and he watches it roll down his cheek. He squats down, captivated by the beauty of it. His lower face, from nose to chin, is coated in red. Its trails down his chest but is hardly visible on black cleric robes.

“Yes… that's us, isn’t it?” He asks the body as he runs the blade over his cheek. “You and me both, and yet here you were, ready to turn me in.” He digs the blade into his cheek and between his teeth. He does not stop until it's coming out of the other side.

“Faking for a whole year…how long did you hate me? Resent me?” He swipes the blade out from his teeth as if to rip it out of his mouth and watches the blood spill in wonder. It was so red. “It must have felt amazing…” He muses.

“…it doesn't matter…” the other cleric had been called, he would be here and zander knew he would die. There was nothing that could explain his partner's injuries as anything but criminal offense sadism. He just hoped they would kill him quickly.

He licks the knife and grimaces at the flavor and delights in his right to feel his disgust. It's a welcome change in pace in contrast to the dull numbness of the same day every day.

He hears the door of the building open. An abandoned church stripped of each reference to the holy ghost, all that remains is zander and his new bloody installation to the place and his shuddering figure. The moonlight and broken window frame him in his glorious downfall. He knows there's an angel that fell from their standing but he does not know its name.

“Adam…” He can't be bothered to turn and face him, but he knows they would send one of the best for another cleric.

“It was you.” Adam means it as a question but it comes out as more of a statement. A declaration that this man was his target.

“Yes, I’m the sense offender they warned you about. I presume the rest of the-”

“You're the one like me he spoke of.” The words catch zander off guard and the feeling is enough to make him turn around and face the man who had turned his entire night on its head.

“Like…you..?”

Adam nods to him, eyes on the blade in his hand and the droplets pooling on the floor that had dried. The sight of blood on his face is not a promising sight but he hopes he's safe. A cleric vs a cleric. Its anyone's fight.

“He knew he would die tonight, he was glad to go.” He gestures to the pile that was Zander's partner. “You were tricked into killing him so that the two of us might meet.”

There's another feeling. Confusion and fear, enough that he backs away from the body, unsure of what to make of Adam's words.

“You didn't expect it, right?” Adam reaches into his pocket and holds out a handkerchief. He knew it would not do much but it was enough to clean some of his face he hoped as he approached the other. “An assisted suicide. He was a sense offender to, you know.” He looks down at the man on the ground and his expression is unreadable. Zander worries even that he might not be feeling at all.

“I...I didn't…” He admits. “I thought he had truly betrayed me…” And the pain comes, the ache is unbearable, so much so that his eyes water. “Though perhaps he truly did.” 

Adam turns to look at him wiping his face, staining the white cloth red.

“I hurt more knowing he used me than knowing he betrayed me.” He's sobbing now, his arm over his eyes to hide it. “We were friends, Adam…”

Adam nods, watching him cry, his gaze still unwavering. 

“And now he's gone…”

Adam gently secures Zander's wrist in his hand making the other gladly drop his blade. He looks Adam in his blue eyes and sees something he has never really known, he can't even place a name to the warmth. 

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” He speaks so softly, it's so strange, even the man on the ground had not looked at him this way. Adam runs a thumb over Zander's knuckles.

“Aldous Huxley…” Adam elaborates. “Its a quote from his book, it seemed fitting, you see.” He pulls Zander in suddenly, giving him his first hug. 

“A book?” Zander asks not sure what to do with his arms. Adams were around him, but hos own hung by his side.

“You want to read, don't you? To know things you shouldn't? To feel what the pages are holding, don't you?” He hugs him tighter.

“I…” Finally, Zander hugs him back. “I do.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy fuccccck its like 4am idk what im writng lmao

“Libria…” Another night out in the nethers, that same church that was naked of everything but the walls that keep it standing. “What a horrible name for a place.” He leans against Adam, his nose in a book but his mind everywhere else.

“Why do you say that?” Adam asks with his focus on another book, not minding the closeness of the other. It was good to have someone to share this with.

“Lib, that's a word that has to do with words like liberty, liberation...li…” he trails off for a moment and adam waits for him. 

“...Library…” Zander says slowly, not sure if that was quite what he wanted to say. “Freedom. Its freedom.”

“Libraries were a place of free books, free knowledge, you were not far off with your last word choice.” He flips the page and zander looks over his shoulders.

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly.” Zander reads and Adam nods in agreement. “They’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” 

“What do you think?” Adam asks and Zander is the one nodding now.

“It's true.” He says plainly. “This book you gave me, its nothing like anything I've had to read before.” He begins turning in his seat next to adam so that his legs are now thrown over his lap, an innate desire for closeness he doesn't even notice but adam sees as lear as a flashlight shone in one's eyes.

“I read a sentence and I feel my chest ache, but I still read!” He's louder than he notices and adam smiles, his eyes low but his spirits high. “These words don't bring me joy, they bring me all sorts of feeling good and bad but I don't put it down...I think of my prozium and I…” He pauses for a long time, and being as careful as he is, adam looks up to see whats going on. Without any warning, he slips his book into his pocket.

“There…” Zander has already stood, his usual blank stare, practiced and perfected is plastered back onto his face.

“Indeed.” Adam is up too, the sound of footsteps trampling on their conversation, and a shadow on the wall.

He comes into view, and Adam wishes to laugh at the irony of broken wood casting a shadow gives the man standing before them what looks like the horns of a devil on the wall behind him. Its funny, of all the places he could have stood.

“You two.” He speaks. A man who wears sunglasses to keep the sun out of sensitive eyes. “What are you doing?” Xavier.

“Patrol.” Adams's tone is a bit more menacing than he intends, annoyance was not something he coped with well. He looks to try and gauge Xavier's expression behind thick black shades but he finds nothing of note.

“Unless of course there is something you need from either of us?” Zander's tone is so practiced, so spot-on in comparison to his own that adam is a bit envious that he can still operate with such accuracy despite his lack of prozium. Even now adam finds himself fretting over himself, wondering if he should have taken a does before Xavier entered.

“He would have seen the book.” He finds himself thinking and thanking his good senses he did not sacrifice the book in his pocket.

“...I was out for patrol myself. I heard reports that the two of you had left at the same time as well.” Xavier looks around, as if trying to find something with which to vilify them. Clearly, he finds nothing because his gaze steadies on them again and goes nowhere else.

“Have you found anything noteworthy?” Xavier asks and both of them shake their head. 

“Upon your arrival, we were just planning to return home. It's late in the night and work starts early. I presume you will do the same, if you had left at the same time as us.” Zander is unreadable, adam wonders if maybe when he wasn't looking that Zander had someone taken his interval. The logical part of him knows hes not, but the fantasizing him cannot shake the thought from his mind.

“...You are correct.” Xavier says after a moments pondering. “I saw your car outside. I presume you will be able to return yourselves.” He says with a stiff wave.

They both watch him leave, tense and unable to relax until they hear him pull off and drive away.

Zanders breath shudders when he exhales, he rests a hand on Adam's shoulder.

* * *

When adam gets home he sleeps, and when he wakes up he looks down into the black pit that is his coffee. The perks of a society that does not feel is that when one decides not to feel attraction they are not pressured to try it anyways.

“I do not wish to marry.” It is all it takes and you don't have to waste your time with a child to weigh you down and keep you from sulking in the peace of your own home.

Sitting to the left of his coffee is a drawing, crude as it is of the man he had spent the last few weeks reading with. He had seen many in the nethers collecting art, remnants of a world long gone, but he wondered where the new art was.

He picks it up along with his drink and burns it over his stove.

“Perhaps in the same place…” He answers.

  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Where one has a peaceful morning the other had awoken with rage. Zander thinks about Xavier's face and how he wanted to crush it under his foot until he was unable to recognize him. He had lost his chance to spend more time with Adam and it was that man's fault.

He grits his teeth in his mouth, his fist curl but he has nowhere to send them and so he dresses for work as quickly as he can.

He watches his face in the mirror, eyes a deep dark brown that his behind it a latent urge to kill. He does not know how others feel and he sees no fault in his desires. His imagination is of blood and viscera that is not neatly extracted by a bullet, but something closer, something deeper, something intimate as…

He stops and tries to imagine it, but he can't think of anything.

* * *

When they meet, they exchange stiff greetings and useless platitudes of encouragement. No one around them cares about the meaning, just the mission.

The mission is completed without incident or anything too unusual. The two spend most of it apart doing what they always have.

Adam watches offenders die and holds back his urge to apologize to each and every one.

“This will end one day and they will have died before seeing it.” He finds himself thinking each time. They deserved it more than he did, the chance to live, to not lose what they had spent years protecting and yet here he was taking everything from them. He holds back his emotions, they deserved the dignity of wounding him. No one deserved to die at the hands of an emotionless machine of a man.

Zander holds himself back, his heart racing. He wanted to do more. There was an anger in him he could feel, it was nearly palpable. He had stopped taking his intervals long ago and each day this rage grew stronger.

He doesn't know where this anger had come from. Maybe it was better that people like him were kept in check. He was the rage they fought. 

“....” He shoots someone through the head. His aim is precise, he makes no mistakes and it irritates him.

If he were still without feeling he would not have Adam.

* * *

They meet this time in an old home, this place just as bare as the rest, but with a comfortable couch that was up to Libra standards.

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” Adam quotes his favorite once again.

“I...Well yes, I suppose its relevant but ...goodness, is every one of life's problems addressed in that little book of yours?” Zander inquires, exasperated.

They were mid-conversation.

“You are not quite normal, even by a sense offenders standards. Your capacity for harm and murder did not lower after you stopped taking your intervals. You're a savage like the man from this book, hearing you describe such violent urges, I can't help but compare the two of you.” He sat with Zander's legs thrown over his lap again. “You are… for lack of better words, the very rage libria wishes to stop.” This time however he's rested his free rand on a thigh, he's got no reason not to hold him if there's no problem from Zander.

“I know this, and…” He ponders for a moment. “I am I, and I wish I weren’t.” A smile spreads across his features and he looks to adam for the look of recognition he wanted. 

Adam smiles despite himself, trying not to laugh at his antics. 

“Have you been memorizing quotes as well?” He chuckles. “What for, to supposedly catch me off guard?”

Zander shakes his head. “I like to see you smile, that's all.” He says with a smile himself. “I want to kill many people in this world, but when you smile at me, I don't want to do anything but see you.” 

“I…” it was a rather bold statement, spoken with disregard for subtlety. “Ah.” His skin was red as he flipped a page. 

“Ah?” Zander inquires.

“Do you even know what you're-”

“Know what I'm saying?”

“Yes.”

Zander shrugs. “Do you know what I'm saying?” He asks.

“I...dodon't want to be presumptuous.” 

Zander nods. “You should try it, Adam. It's not all that hard.” He looks down at the other's hand on his thigh. “In fact, I know you know exactly what I'm saying.”

* * *

Adam awakens in the morning in his home, the memory of his lips and Zanders as well. He tries to sit up but he's unable to move thinking about it, too excited, only able to lie in place excitedly.

He could kiss him 1000 times and never grow tired of the feeling.

“I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.” He scribbles the quote at the top of his morning doodle.

“I will kiss him 1000 times.” It was a quote from zander's favorite book. He burns the paper as per usual.

Stepping outside he sees news of the rebellions capture and his joy from that morning sinks into nothing.

“How much longer will we wait until we are free of this?” he asks himself.

  
  



End file.
